Dana Sachs

All Else Failed: The Unlikely Volunteers at the Heart of the Migrant Aid Crisis Dana Sachs

As a million displaced people sought refuge in Europe, the global relief system failed. This is the story of the volunteers who stepped forward to help.

In 2015, increasing numbers of refugees and migrants, most of them fleeing war-torn homelands, arrived by boat on the shores of Greece, setting off the greatest human displacement since WWII. As journalists reported horrific mass drownings, an ill-prepared and seemingly indifferent world looked on. Those who reached Europe needed food, clothing, medicine, and shelter, but the international aid system broke down completely.

All Else Failed is Dana Sachs's compelling eyewitness account of the successes--and failures--of the volunteer relief network that emerged to meet the enormous need. People from around the globe pitched in to address the crisis. Yet the most dedicated and effective volunteers were often migrants themselves, including Rima, a mother of six, who cooked for four hundred refugees in an abandoned schoolhouse in Athens; Ibrahim, who managed donations flowing to the grassroots effort; and Sami, whose language skills helped fellow migrants navigate a foreign world.

Closely following the odysseys of seven individual men and women, and their families, All Else Failed tells a story of despair and resilience, revealing the humanity within an immense humanitarian disaster.